Democrats put $3.4M behind Susan Collins allegations
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The Democrats' main Senate super PAC is turning an explosive ProPublica investigation into Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) into a 30-second, $3.4 million attack campaign in one of the closest Senate races of the midterms.
Why it matters: The big buy from Senate Majority PAC suggests Democrats think they can turn a complicated investigation into a simple message attacking Collins' willingness to put Maine first.
- It also suggests they don't think the allegations in the ProPublica story — which Collins vigorously disputes — have broken through with Maine voters.
- "Susan Collins took illegal campaign money and steered millions in government contracts to the donor," a female narrator says in the ad.
Zoom in: ProPublica's reporting focused on an FBI investigation involving Collins and Martin Kao, a former defense contractor who pleaded guilty to campaign-finance and loan-fraud charges.
- Kao told investigators that his defense and engineering company used political contributions to Collins and groups supporting her to help secure tens of millions of dollars in federal defense contracts, according to ProPublica.
- After pleading guilty, Kao began cooperating with the FBI in hopes of reducing his sentence. The article claims the investigation died after President Trump returned to office.
The other side: Collins has disputed the story's central claims and pointed to the Justice Department's decision not to bring charges.
- The investigation found "no wrongdoing by anyone on my campaign staff, my office or me," she said.
- "It's clearly a political hit job."
Zoom out: In a sea of positive developments for Senate Democrats this cycle, Maine remains a stubborn outlier.
- Collins led Democrat Troy Jackson 49% to 46% in a mid-September New York Times/Siena poll.
- In the campaign's final weeks, Republicans have reserved $34 million of air time, compared to $24 million for the Democrats, according to AdImpact.
- Jackson is the Democrats' nominee after their initial pick, Graham Platner, withdrew following reports of sexual assault, which he denied.
The intrigue: The new ad comes as Senate Majority PAC is pleading with its top donors for more money to help it compete on an expanding map.
- "Democratic groups still urgently need additional resources to remain competitive in the final days of the campaign," SMP wrote to its donors on Thursday, according to a memo obtained by the New York Times and confirmed by Axios.
- "Democrats do not have a candidate problem or a message problem. They have a paid-media challenge that gets more expensive to solve every week the outside-money gap holds."
Go deeper: Republicans pulled a similar move in Alaska last week, drawing on a New York Times investigation to hammer former Rep. Mary Peltola in the Alaska Senate race.
